In the ancient Roman world, mercy was viewed as a weakness.
“...in the pagan world, and especially among the philosophers, mercy was regarded as a character defect and pity as a pathological emotion: because mercy involves providing unearned help or relief, it is contrary to justice. As E. A. Judge explained, classical philosophers taught that “mercy indeed is not governed by reason at all,” and humans must learn “to curb the impulse”; “the cry of the undeserving for mercy” must go “unanswered.” Judge continued: “Pity was a defect of character unworthy of the wise and excusable only in those who have not yet grown up.”39
This was the moral climate in which Christianity taught that mercy is one of the primary virtues—that a merciful God requires humans to be merciful. Moreover, the corollary that because God loves humanity, Christians may not please God unless they love one another was even more incompatible with pagan convictions. But the truly revolutionary principle was that Christian love and charity must extend beyond the boundaries of family and even those of faith, to all in need.”
— The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion by Rodney Stark
Christianity softened Europeans. It made them gentler. It encouraged kindness and humility. Confessing one’s sins and learning from past mistakes transformed individuals, and slowly—very slowly at times—transformed Europe as a whole.1
How can a people improve if they are not willing to admit to their mistakes and learn from their past? Confession became the strength of the west.
Different religions (which have different values) lead to very different cultures and very different kinds of civilisations.
In the Islamic world confession is regarded as a weakness. Progress is slow when you do not have the humility to admit you were wrong. (And it is even slower when you blame others for all your problems.)
See also Ibrahim’s videos ‘So WHY Saladin?’, ‘Islam & the West: Real History vs Fake History', and ''When Islam Died'.
Westerners have much to be proud of. But if enough westerners do not come to this realisation—and come to it soon—all will be lost (see Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The Growing Threat of Radical Islam).2
There is no guarantee that western civilisation will survive.
The west is hated by many. But the west's greatest enemy is the enemy within.
Marxists think communism is the answer, Jihadists think sharia is the answer. Marxists think violent revolution can be justified in order to bring in the communist state. Jihadists are convinced that by engaging in violent jihad they are helping to make this world a better place. They honestly believe that we will thank them when our democracies have been destroyed, and we can see how good it is to live under sharia (though they are unable to point to a successful example, which is causing many to turn from Islam. See ‘Islam’s Crisis of Apostasy’ on The Middle East Forum). Marxists and Jihadist are both motivated by their "righteous cause." They are on the side of right, and they are out to destroy those they regard as evil. This makes them natural allies when it comes to destroying democracies. But when a democracy is destroyed, the Marxists usually come off second best. (See Elica Le Bon’s interview about Iran on Triggernometry. A similar thing happened in Afghanistan. And it even happened recently to some leftists in the US, see 'Is Islam at War with the West? LIVE with Raymond Ibrahim' on Apologetics Roadshow.)
It's time for many western academics to admit that their hatred of Christianity has warped their view of the world, blinding them to many of the very real problems in other civilisations, and causing them to embrace some very foolish ideas. All cultures have some good things, and all cultures have some bad things. It's time we stopped judging different cultures by different standards. No culture, group, race, or society should be immune from criticism.3
If western civilisation is destroyed, it will be destroyed because westerners did not find the courage to allow freedom of speech and stand up for the values they once held dear (see the video below, see also Konstantin Kisin's HILARIOUS and INSPIRATIONAL Speech at ARC).4
Will the west wake from its sleep? Or is it already too late?
So why did the West turn from the God of the Bible? There are many reasons. One of which is bad theology. The Church (without realising it) made God look like a monster. See "A Legacy of Fear and Persecution" in Thomas Talbott's book, The Inescapable Love of God. See also Is Hell Eternal? and What's Wrong with the Innocent Dying for the Guilty
1. It caused Europe to advance more than any other civilisation. Not only were Europeans learning from their past mistakes, they were also learning from other civilisations.
“Eventually, the Western world would overtake the Middle Eastern and North African countries, both militarily and in terms of science and technology. But now the Islamic countries were by no means as receptive to the cultural advances made in the Western countries as the West had once been when the countries of the Middle East and North Africa were ascendant—or as the Islamic world itself had once been receptive to absorbing cultural advances from other societies.
This mutual receptivity to each other’s culture in the Middle Ages is now very much part of a long gone past. One revealing sign of today’s lack of cultural receptivity to Western culture in the Middle East is that in today’s Arab world—about 300 million people in more than 20 countries23—the number of books translated from other languages has been just one-fifth of the number translated by Greece alone, for a population of 11 million people.
Over a five-year period, a United Nations study showed that the number of books translated in the Arab world was less than one book for every million Arabs, while in Hungary there were 519 books translated for every million people, and in Spain 920 books per million people.24 Put differently, Spain translates more books into Spanish annually than the Arabs have translated into Arabic in a thousand years.25 This too was a pattern very different from the Islamic world of earlier centuries. Even the philosophy of ancient Greece once reached Western Europe in Arabic translations, which were in turn re-translated in Spain into Latin or into the vernacular languages of Western Europe.26
Cultural isolation can have effects very similar to the effects of geographic isolation, making it harder for individuals, groups, nations or whole civilizations to keep up with the advances of others. China’s decline from world leadership in many fields was likewise marked by resistance to learning from others. Early in the fifteenth century, the government of China imposed severe restrictions on contacts with the outside world, destroying the large ships in which a Chinese admiral had made voyages of exploration covering longer distances than Columbus’ much smaller ships. Such voyages were now not only forbidden but the building of ships capable of making such voyages was banned, and records of earlier voyages to what were regarded as the lands of foreign barbarians were destroyed. A twenty-first century American scientist assessed China’s position as of the time this fateful decision was made:
Before the decision, China had a fleet of ocean-going ships bigger and more capable than any European ships. China was roughly level with Europe in scientific knowledge and far ahead in the technologies of printing, navigation, and rocketry. As a consequence of the decision, China fell disastrously behind in science and technology, and is only catching up now after six hundred years.27
In the eighteenth century, when King George III sent gifts to the emperor of China that included various devices showing technological advances in the West, the emperor of China replied that there was nothing China lacked. He said: “We have never set much store on strange or ingenious objects, nor do we need any more of your country’s manufactures.”28 A rejection of advances from another culture could hardly have been more explicit—or more catastrophic, as China became ever more vulnerable to Western imperialism as the technological gap between the two civilizations widened.
Since no given culture is better in all things, much less for all time, a lack of receptivity to the cultural advances made by others is a self-imposed isolation that can be as damaging as isolation imposed by geography.”
— Wealth, Poverty and Politics by Thomas Sowell
2. See Ibrahim's book Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, and 'What Happened to Christianity in Europe? (Ayaan Hirsi Ali Explains)' on the YouTube channel Apologetics Roadshow.
Fortunately, some influential westerners are waking up. See "What Elon Musk Just Learned about Islam" on Apologetics Roadshow (there's also some good really advice in this video for Protestants, Orthodox, and Catholics who seem to be fighting more and more among themselves).
3. The Marxist's long march through our educational institutions has been very effective. Most educators at our universities do not view themselves as Marxists, but they view the world through a Marxist lense. They divide the world into the oppressed and oppressors. There are a few problems with viewing the world this way. 1. It lacks explanatory power. It's too simple. The truth is we are all victims, and we are all agents. We've all been oppressed, and we are all oppressors. That's a more honest and complete view of the world, and it makes us a little bit gentler when dealing with those we regard as "sinners" (because we understand that we are sinners too). 2. Because they are so zealous to fix the world, they are often too quick to judge. Their view of the world stops them from judging fairly. They start applying different standards to different groups and different individuals. They overlook important events which warps their view of the world. 3. Because they fail to see that their own character is not just their problem, but part of the "worlds" problem, they often become oppressors in the name of defending the oppressed.
“It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an unuprooted small corner of evil.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Those who are consumed with fixing everything except themselves are foolish, and often a danger to society. (They become the end justifies the means kind of people, and as such are capable of all kinds of evil all-the-while believing they are doing good.)
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - C.S. Lewis
“Foolish is the man, and there are many such men, who would rid himself or his fellows of discomfort by setting the world right, by waging war on the evils around him, while he neglects that integral part of the world where lies his business, his first business—namely, his own character and conduct.” ~ George MacDonald, The Hope of the Gospel
Unfortunately, our educators have infected many of their students, turning them into crusaders. These crusaders—our future lawyers, teachers, journalists etc—have been infected with the Marxist view of the world. They think themselves on the side of right—blind to their own sins, and hateful towards those they regard as the oppressors—they are now on a mission to destroy those they believe to be the cause of all the evils of this world.
“There is a way that appears to be right,
but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs 16:25)
If we are to make this world a better place, first we must start by becoming better people. We must admit that we do not love some people as we ought, and start treating all people—even the oppressors—as we would like to be treated. (If we are serious about this, we will seek God's help. See "What is the Gospel?" below.)
4. The west is certainly in trouble. See “Ex-Marine: We Lost in Afghanistan and We're Losing at Home Too” on Triggernometry. See also "Lefties Gone Wild - The Crazy State of Australia’s University Sector" on THE OTHER SIDE.
Raymond Ibrahim’s Warning to the West: Unprecedented Challenges Ahead
The Only Way to Save Europe according to David Wood
How should unbelievers be treated?